Aircraft are designed to operate within certain operating speeds and loads on control surfaces of the aircraft. These operating limits are known as the flight envelope, outside of which there may be damage or loss of control of the aircraft. In order to protect against operating outside of the flight envelope, conventional aircraft utilize many disparate systems that evaluate individual aspects of the aircraft to determine whether the aircraft is operating outside of the flight envelope or is likely to collide with the ground on the present flight path. These conventional systems, however, have limitations that prevent full envelope protection.
Furthermore, these conventional systems are often disabled for landing based on whether the landing gear is down or by pilot command. Disabling the systems for landing, however, causes the aircraft to lose flight envelope protection during the landing.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide systems and aircraft that provide greater flight envelope protection during flight and during landing phases. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.